Archives for category: For-Profit
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A Market Failure: Kids, Teachers, Tough Luck

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2012 //
19

A reader sent an article about a for-profit firm in Pennsylvania that runs four alternative schools for “disciplinary” students. It furloughed its 50 teachers and administrators and closed down without warning. What happens to the students? The teachers? No one knows.

The teachers are in the dark about whether they have jobs in a month. They are paid very low salaries: $31,000 if they have benefits, $36,000 without benefits.  The company is owned by the son of a Congressman. All calls are referred to a lawyer’s office, which has no information.

This is the sector that Republican governors want to expand. Government contracts with minimal or no oversight. At-risk kids put even more at risk in the hands of vendors.

Remind me about the superiority of the private sector. I forget.

Perhaps coincidentally, another reader commented on an earlier post about the market model:

Markets in education are insufficient, because they do not include the overriding public purpose and public interest in educational outcomes. Educational quality is not simply a matter to be settled between “education service providers” and parents. Our entire society has a critical stake in educational outcomes, and public governance  and funding of education is a very effective way to make sure

Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Governor Rick Snyder’s Plan

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
15

Governor Snyder’s plan for education in Michigan sounds just like Romney’s and Bobby Jindal’s.

The money should follow the student anywhere and everywhere, to any vendor of education services, regardless of who owns it or manages it.

So, students may take their money to private schools, to hawkers of services, to online courses, whatever. Welcome to anyone who wants to start a school and collect public money.

That is a plan to undermine public education, and the rightwing knows it. That’s their goal.

Education costs won’t go down without increasing class sizes, and the way that will happen is by shifting more dollars to online schools of dubious quality.

It may be worth pointing out that this is not the formula of any high-performing nation in the world.

An editorial writer for the Detroit Free Press sees an issue with the Snyder approach. His column is called “It’s Time to Reshape Public Education.” My suggestion, take care not to destroy it. The entrepreneurs who will flood the new marketplace will care more about their bottom line than about children. Surely, Governor Snyder knows that. This is the governor’s prescription for education spending:

“Any time, any place, any way, any pace.”

It’s a catchy way of saying state money should follow students through all kinds of educational options, from traditional neighborhood schools to charters and online coursework — whatever best enables the student to learn.

Snyder calls it “unfettered flexibility” and hopes to foster more “free market ideas for public schools in Michigan.”

Sounds good, but let’s make sure we have quality controls in place for educators who want to set up shop here and take in our tax dollars.

And let’s not leave decisions about learning entirely up to the students. A few may do just fine taking a physics class online at 2 a.m. from a teacher based in Arizona. But most will probably be better served by a little more structure — and a mandatory gym class.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization

Another Charter School Scandal: Ho-Hum

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
3

I guess we will have to get used to this sort of thing.

Some charter schools in Florida padded the enrollment–er, made a miscalculation–of the number of students in their program.

Here is the story:

An audit of Coronado High School found there was no documentation to show 465 students participated in an on-the-job course. The school could provide documentation of 13 students in the course. The audit at North Nicholas High revealed 102 of 372 students were incorrectly reported.

Nice to see they were audited.

The governor had three charter school executives on his transition team.

He named one of them to the State Board of Education.

Does anyone care?

Remember when we used to worry about conflicts of interest?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization

Is a Struggling School Like a Failed Restaurant?

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2012 //
20

Here is a blog that says that a school with low test scores is like a failed restaurant.

We know what happens when a restaurant fails.

It closes. It goes bankrupt. The hungry customers go somewhere else.

He is an entrepreneur who is now in the business of reforming schools.

Here is his analysis:

Struggling schools are like failed restaurants.  The kitchen staff are the educators. Maybe the chef is the chapter union leader.  The restaurant owner/manger is the school administration.  Customers are the kids.  And Eli Broad or one of the education agencies he funds is Gordon Ramsey.  He comes in with honest, straightforward observations, and tells you what’s going wrong.  Sometimes it’s the chef that’s the problem and the management is too disengaged to fix it.  Sometimes it’s the management, inhibiting the talent of a bunch of great cooks.  In most cases, the restaurant is neglected – dirty and infested.  Disgusting actually, especially if you look in the secret places, behind and underneath things, as LA Unified knows all too well.

Well, gosh, wouldn’t you be thrilled to have Eli Broad come to your school and tell you how to fix your problems? Wouldn’t you want to have a guy who made billions in the home-building and insurance industry tell you what’s wrong and what to do?

Or are you just a lousy chef working in a rat-infested building without the sense to do anything about it?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Murdoch’s Bold Move into Education Market

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2012 //
24

Make no mistake. The privatization movement is in full cry.

There are big profits to be made in the education industry.

Rupert Murdoch’s corporation just split into two divisions, with one focused on education and publishing, headed by Joel Klein.

Says the story: Mr. Klein said being a part of the spunoff publishing company (which would include the troubled British tabloid The Sun) could help ease concerns among educators.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any data about my grandchildren in Murdoch’s data base.

According to the story linked above, Rupert Murdoch tweeted: “Only way to restore American dream and have real meritocracy is fix terrible public K-12 education.”

And of course, Murdoch and Klein know how to fix it.

Trust them.

I wish someone would tell them that NAEP scores are at their highest point in history, in reading and in math, for grades four and eight, for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.

But they wouldn’t listen.

They have a business to run.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Privatization

Florida’s Grading System Has a Purpose

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2012 //
0

Florida has perfected a useless system of grading schools.Matthew DiCarlo of the Shanker Institute analyzed the school grades from Florida and found that they reflect poverty and income levels, not school quality. If the school enrolls large numbers of poor kids, it stands a high chance of getting a D or an F from the state. If it enrolls middle-class or affluent kids, they get good grades. Nice way to grade schools!

Coach Bob Sikes points out that the charter corporations now colonizing the state of Florida need the school grades so that they can pick up more business. Given the nature of the grading system, there will always be ripe plums that fall their way, along with public dollars. Jeb Bush has promised to revive the failed Parent Trigger law, as that is yet another tool to generate business for the charter chains.

The most important purpose of the grading system, however, is to inculcate the consumer mentality in legislators, parents, civic leaders, and the public. If you don’t like your school’s grade, go shopping for another!

With public disgust running high against the testing regime, Coach Sikes wonders, will the state legislature be ready to fight the parents of Florida again to push for Jeb Bush’s privatization agenda?

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Poverty, Privatization

Public Education Is Not a Business

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2012 //
29

I have posted a number of comments on the subject of whether, when and how schools are like businesses. This reader says that public education is not a business.

Of course, it is important to understand that the purpose of the accountability measures and the choice policies is to get us all in the habit of thinking we are shoppers, consumers of education services that compete for our children and our dollars.

Parents are supposed to take the school letter grades and go shopping. They are supposed to teach the teacher evaluations and ask for a different teacher. This is supposed to reform schools and make kids smarter somehow. But the real purpose is to get us to view our public services and public goods with a consumer mentality. You can begin to see how nutty this is. Can we shop for a different police department? Can we shop to change our public parks and beaches? No, but we can turn over their management to private vendors. You see, when you start thinking like a consumer, then you forget the distinction between a public service and a business venture.

If they get enough of us to think like this, then we will acquiesce as they privatize everything so we can shop for everything. Or have the illusion of shopping, the illusion of consumer choice. Kind of like when you go to the grocery story and see fifty different cereals and then discover they were all made by the same company.

The problem with this comment is that it is incorrect about the definition of a business. In the second line of the first paragraph, the commenter states:“Schools are a business — they have employees, labor costs, capital costs, and budgets.”Having employees, labor costs, capital costs, and budgets is not the definition of a business. A well-to-do household could have all those things, and nobody would claim it’s a business. Many charities have those things, and they are not businesses. And of course, governments have those things, and they are not businesses.

The real definition of a business can be found in the last line of the first paragraph, although the commenter just casts it aside:

“The critical difference between schools and what we commonly think of as a business — Verizon or Citibank — is that the ultimate purpose of the schools is to provide the service (educate the children) while, for the conventional service business such as Verizon or Citibank, the provision of the service is simply a means to the ultimate purpose of making a profit for the business’ owners.”

Yes, businesses’ ultimate purpose is to make a profit for the business owners. That’s what makes a business a business. It’s the one integral, universal trait of all businesses. That is the definition of a business: It makes a profit for the business owners. That’s it.

Public Education does not meet the one actual requirement of what a business is.

To say it has a few things in common so it must be the same is just wrong. And to work from that premise leads to more poor logic, misguided decisions, and poor outcomes.

Public Eduction is not a business.
Categories Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

How the Attack on Public Education Is Like the Tobacco Industry

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2012 //
4

A reader read this post about FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), a strategy intended to undermine and discredit the competition. And Bingo! The light went on. It was the same pattern on the rug.

OMG! FUD jogged my memory about a book I read 2 yrs ago by Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming”. Edu-reformers are using some of the same strategies that were used by the tobacco and oil industries to advance their business agendas and preclude government regulation on their products. Oreskes is an historian of science at U Cal, San Diego. She and Conway tell an amazing story that begins in the 1980′s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOnXL8ob_js
From a review: “Oreskes and Conway roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided by a too-compliant media, has skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.”Her book chronicles how the tobacco industry and the oil industry ran effective PR campaigns to mislead the public on decades of science showing the effects of tobacco smoke on health and the effects of carbon emissions on climate. Both industries set up think tanks, hired established scientists whose credentials were stellar in their fields but whose expertise were not in health and climate. These “experts” conducted research to challenge decades of established facts. Their product was doubt. The purpose was to generate mistrust in established scientific findings. The outcome was to cloud the public’s knowledge, influence the media, and effect government policies that were moving to restrict tobacco and energy industries business practices. Their explicit strategy was “teach the controversy”. The sad reality is that doubt mongering works.

American public education is in a dark corner today. Our unquestioning media plays up the attacks on established education science and teachers. Recall Jonathan Alter & David Brooks’ articles denouncing Diane’s positions on NCLB & RttT. Think Tanks and private philanthropies have made it their business to disseminate junk science written by non-educators that, by design, bypass peer review (e.g. Gates Foundation, Center for American Progress, The Heritage Foundation, AEI, NEIT, et al.) to advance increasing class sizes, high stakes testing, merit pay, ending salary bumps for advanced degrees, charter schools, online education, vouchers, turn-arounds, ending collective bargaining, etc. Claims antithetical to actual scientific findings for efficacy. Bruce Baker (and many others) who regularly debunks the reformy arguments is virtually ignored in the national media.

Oreskes makes a provocative statement about scientists who make claims outside of their expertise: ‘The very features that lead to expertise in a particular domain leads to ignorance in many others.’ Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Michael Milken, Joel Klien, Michael Bloomberg, Eli Broad, anyone?

A critical difference in the current edu-refomry campaign, missing from the previous campaign, is our government’s complicity with the privatizers. The private financial industry and philanthropists are using the full force of the government to advance their agendas. Capturing public money is their business model, schools are simply their vehicle. This is a story of betrayal by our elected officials. They are failing in their mission to serve the public. Indeed, our children’s future is in the hands of those who care the least about other people’s children.
Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Privatization

Which CEO Made $5 Million Stealing Your Kid’s Lunch Money?

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2012 //
8

At last, someone who knows and cares about public education has made a Youtube video that tells the story of ALEC and the privatization movement, linking them to the outpouring of legislation against teachers and public education. Share this with your friends and neighbors. The narrator is Julie Mead, the dean of education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Karran Harper Royal is a founding member of Parents Across America. Gary Miron of Western Michigan University wrote the National Education Policy Center’s report on K12.

The video is called “Which CEO Made $5 Million Stealing Your Kid’s Lunch Money.” Help it go viral.

Categories ALEC, Education Reform, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Parent trigger, Privatization

Kudos to Jennie Shanker! Debate Ended.

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2012 //
8

If you have been following these posts for the past few days, you will recall that New Jersey Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf claimed that legendary union leader Al Shanker would be on his side, supporting more of the (non-union) charters that Cerf wants to open all over New Jersey.

I wrote a post pointing out that Al Shanker was an original proponent of charters but turned against them in 1993 when he realized that they would become the leading edge of privatization.

I then got a tongue-lashing by someone from New Jersey for daring to say that Al Shanker would not be on board with Chris Cerf and his boss Governor Chris Christie in their campaign to turn more public schools over to entrepreneurs.

And then, blogger Mother Crusader discovered that Al Shanker’s widow, Edie Shanker, had already spoken up and reminded the world that Al would not have supported the “reform” movement.

But best of all, I just read in Jersey Jazzman’s piece that Al’s daughter Jennie Shanker posted the following comment on the article challenging my views:

# Do not speak for Albert Shanker. — Jennie Shanker 2012-07-20 11:26

It was a pleasure and joy to read 2/3rds of your article, at which point your perspective takes its own course.
As his daughter, I treasure the testimony of individuals who knew my father and his work. Lately, it has been, frankly, dreadful to find his name associated with school “reform” that undermines public education. Without exception, these articles offer a few short quotes in evidence, always inappropriately pulled out of the context of his true mission and life’s work.
I can tell you, absolutely and unequivocally, if my father was with us today he would be fighting side by side with Diane Ravitch to preserve and improve public education. The Washington Post re-published an excellent post from Ravitch’s blog this week which very clearly articulats the differences between his vision of charter reform and the for-profit version championed by Chris Cerf and others in New Jersey.
Would he have told that NJ parent to send their child to public schools? Absolutely. As mentioned in the Post article, NJ public schools are among the highest performing in the nation.
Your appreciation for my father’s work and vision was lovely to read. But your stance on this issue is diametrically opposed to his values and intent, and you are dead wrong to shame Diane Ravitch for her position. Indeed, if you consider your thinking to be in line with my father’s, I recommend that you champion her work, as my family does. If anyone can speak for my father in this day and age, the person who should be most trusted is Dr. Ravitch.
It’s unfortunate that many people who read your article will not see this comment. I would like to respectfully request that you reconsider further publicizing your characterizatio n of my father’s position on this topic. From what is in evidence in this article, despite your love for the man, you are in no position to speak for him. -Jennie Shanker
Categories Cerf, Chris, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, New Jersey, Privatization
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